Genius and Dummy, Part III

…As the days and weeks passed, the confidence Steve placed in Alvin continued to deepen, until the intimacy between the two rival even that between the professor and his wife. It was then that Alvin knew he could elicit virtually any information out from his supposed confidant without raising suspicion.

“So, your electronic voice synthesizer, did you just come across it in the Sharper Image catalogue one day?” Alvin asked, broaching the subject as jocularly as possible, hoping the light-hearted humor would distract Steve from his true intentions.

“Elaine’s ex…David…designed it specifically…for me.” Elaine, of course, was the professor’s second wife.

“Promising,” thought Alvin with sinister, conniving glee, in the belief that his enemy’s enemy is his friend. “I couldn’t have designed a more felicitous arrangement.”

* * * * * * * * *

“Of course I was furious when she remarried!” began David as the preface to a lengthy and dramatic tirade, most of which can be omitted here for the sake of brevity. The central message of his diatribe was that he felt particular betrayal at his wife’s choice of a new mate in Hawking, who was not only David’s associate, but a quadriplegic. “Imagine the shame I felt, being left for another man…and not even a whole man! The shame—and betrayal! Sure, I’ll do anything to help. Lemme know what you have in mind.”

“It’s really delightfully simple. I’m quite surprised you hadn’t thought of it yourself,” said Alvin with that special twinkle in his eye for the second time that week…

“Marvelous!” cried David, “I really don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it myself. Then again, I wasn’t in a position to carry out such a plan, even if it had occurred to me sooner. Well, Hawking’s voice synthesizer is a rather old model. There really are much better and newer ones out there, but he refuses to replace his current machine because he said he ‘identifies’ with the voice it produces. I guess he’s just comfortable with it. It’s controlled by an infrared switch that monitors his blinking; the switch is clipped onto his eyeglasses. Some of the commands are also activated when he scrunches his right cheek. To disable the voice system, all you have to do is deactivate the switch on his glasses. You could remove it entirely, but someone close to him would probably notice it’s missing.”“Right,” Alvin responded with a nod.

“Now, there’s another tricky part,” David continued. “You’ve probably noticed that in the Hawking residence, doors will automatically open when he’s approaching. The same in his office.” Again, Alvin nodded. “His wheelchair sends out radio transmissions to ready the doors, so he can also control those from his wheelchair. If you deactivate that system, people will notice that the doors aren’t working, and get suspicious, so you’ll have to figure some way around that.”“Right again. Thanks for all your help. I know this info won’t be coming free, so how much is it going to cost me?”“That’s really something we should have discussed before we had this little chat, isn’t it? I don’t need anything; the satisfaction of seeing Hawking squirm, or sit motionless in misery, is all the compensation I need…Then again, you’re coming into a large sum, so you could probably afford to cut me in on a £100,000 or so, right?”

“Greedy bastard! Yeah, alright. And remember, if I go down, I’m taking you with me, so no word on this to the coppers, ya hear?”“Did you just step into a time warp that transported you into 1920s Chicago?””No, sorry…talking like that just makes me feel so cool. Alright, now I’ve gotta run. I’ve got an hour dinner break, and tonight is movie night, so that bought me a little more time, but after that I’ve definitely gotta be there to give Steve his sponge bath,” said Alvin, a small shudder going up his back as the last two words passed over his lips. “Thanks again for the help!”